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Field Guide to the Apocalypse: Movie Survival Skills for the End of the World

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By Phil Villarreal
Arizona Daily Star

If the movies have taught us anything, it's that the apocalypse will most definitely arrive. When it does, we're going to need a 1970s muscle car to get through all the explosions and mad dashes against warlords.

When the day is nigh, it will also help to acquire a canine sidekick and a cache of weapons.

"Field Guide to the Apocalypse: Movie Survival Skills for the End of the World" ($10.36), by former video-store manager Meghann Marco, pragmatically guides you through the ins and outs of identifying and surviving false utopias, alien invasions and weather cataclysms.

Under the guise of a how-to book, "Field Guide" emerges as rapacious satire that takes the whole of action and sci-fi film history and shapes it into an oddly constructed world with its own arbitrary rules and regulations, to be joyfully torn apart by Marco's snappy, fluid prose. A must-read for any film fanatic, the guide plunders contradictions and clichés, taking preposterous movie science at its own level and holding it up for ridicule.

A vein of hilarious nostalgia courses through the pages, as we learn how not to be replaced by a robot in the vein of "Blade Runner," as well as how to identify if our food is people ("Soylent Green"). The gamut of popcorn movies is covered and comedically splintered, ranging from "Metropolis" (1927) to "Signs" (2002) and slapdown of the midlife crises by George Lucas and Steven Spielberg that caused them to re-edit their classics.

With wit, intense observation, occasional flashes of raw anger and reserves of accessible film knowledge, Marco makes her points with a flourish in a page-turner that demands to be read in one sitting.

- Contact reporter Phil Villarreal at 520-573-4130 or prv@azstarnet.com

- Do houseguests constantly complain that you've got nothing interesting to read in the bathroom?
- Do friends complain that waiting impatiently for you (as you try on your 33rd successive outfit while getting ready to go to the club) is boring because your coffee table contains only archaic episodes of the Onion and a few unpaid cable bills* to read?
- Are you constantly searching for 'light' or 'light-hearted' reading material that won't suck you in to a plot-line and refuse to let you get to sleep until 5 minutes before your alarm goes off?

Then go get yourself a copy of Field Guide to the Apocalypse : Movie Survival Skills for the End of the World by Meghann Marco

Most of the people I choose to spend my Saturday nights gaming, watching movies or even just socializing with, probably could have written this book. I probably could have written this book. You probably could've written this book** -- if we weren't so busy whiling our time away reading and writing things like Amazon.com Reviews instead, that is.

But thank heavens that Meghann Marco did - because it needed to be written!! And she definitely did it justice. Don't believe me without thumbing through it yourself? <A href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/068987877X/ref=sib_rdr_ex/104-1816661-9405525?%5Fencoding=UTF8&p=S00I&j=0#reader-page">Go read a few excerpts.</a>

It's a delightful little book - and if you keep it on the coffeetable, or in the W.C., it will amuse the crap out of you*** - presuming you have at least a passing knowledge of post-apocalyptic movies. It's good to be familiar with just about any Charlton Heston after-the-end-of-civilization movie (Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green, Omega Man...) It's good to know any Kubrick 'futurism' movies (2001, Dr. Strangelove...) It's good to know some of the more popular Philip K. Dick stories-adapted-to-movies (Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report...) It doesn't hurt to have a healthy knowledge of the Classic-Sci-Fi-novel-turned-movies (1984, Farenheit 451, Brave New World...) in order to get a lot of the 'Cognoscenti' references. But even if your only familiarity is a brush with Logan's Run or the Matrix movies, you'll still enjoy the humor.

Honestly, this isn't deep, meaningful literature. It's not groundbreaking - there are a slew of similar books on the same subjects, including those limited to just one genre of PA society (zombies, comets, asteroids, wastelands...)
But it IS damn funny... and it's definitely worth the cover price.

Even if nobody else ever stays in your post-apocalypticesque bathroom long enough to find out why <u>you</u> kept laughing so hard while you were in there!


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* Which at least explains why they aren't watching pay-per-view adult movies on your TV instead
** An assumption, given that you're literate enough to have gotten this far and clearly have at least a passing interest in the subject matter - or you wouldn't have kept reading
*** The pun was unintentional when I wrote it, but then it amused me, so I left it in due to vanity (did you catch that one?) and because I can (can! hah... another bad restroom pun! I crack me up - not as much as the book does, but you get what you pay for)

It's always inspiring when someone you know gets her very own ISBN, especially if it's for a book that's funny, even moreso if it's intentionally funny. After watching scads of end-of-the-world flicks, Meghann Marco (of MeghannMarco.com, wtf) has written the book that is bound to continue to inspire even after our planet's doomsday -- I predict it will inspire fights to the death among the coming apocalypse's more intelligent would-be survivors (i.e., those outside of Tim LaHaye's readership).

Though it's inspired by films, Meghann's book is packed surprisingly full with Actual Information, some of which doesn't even have to wait for the Apocalypse in order to be true. For example, though she's talking about survival in Arctic conditions, "a lot of work means a lot of death" is undeniable by anyone who's ever done much of it. At least one tip has clearly been studied by the U.S. military:

"If you don't understand what the informant is saying, keep kneeing him in the stomach until he says, `Okay, okay, okay' and speaks English. Everybody speaks English if you knee them in the stomach enough."

Actually, the hysteria was just me reacting to some unbelievably true little factoids I learned about our impending doom. I couldn't stop laughing-though at one point it turned to a nervous laugh due to the fact that the apocalypse is pretty much on its way and if we don't wake up, gear up, and put on our alien-seeing 80s sunglasses, then we're all screwed. The apocalypse is a scary subject, but it's a nice to know that if we should happen to come under an invasion from weird, green, anti-water alien people, we can always send Boy George to try to work things out. We'll probably be zapped to hell but at least we can go out with a smile. Good call Ms. Marco. Keep the good stuff coming.

Ahhh, Meghann Marco, it must be crazy being around you. So the end of the world is coming (and it will come) so what are you going to do? Well, Meghann has given us some options based on knowledge-stealing from friends like 'Smart Neighbor', her own research, and piles of Apocalyptic movie scenarios. While this book isn't dead serious, it still provides some actual information yet in a highly humorous way. What do we have to look forward to - here ya go:
1. The False Utopia where culture, emotions, and reproduction are controlled by the 'higher ups'. How to break free of those mind controlling drugs they have you on and how to hide your freewill so as not to be captured and 'recycled'. You learn how to tell if you're in a dreamworld and how to avoid the simulacrum robot replacement initiatives.

Some at the movie references: The Island, Matrix, Clockwork Orange, Total Recall, Equilibrium, Stepdford Wives.

2. Neo-Medieval World and how it's brought about through natural disasters (super volcanos, greenhouse effect, ice age, meteor strike), pandemic disease, robot revolution, and the massive co-ordinated animal uprising. You learn how to survive in the apocalyptic wasteland (remember Wardrobe, Firepower, and proper choosing of your Vehicle & Pet). How to become the Warlord. Converting your car to use alternate fuels. Some notes on zombies and how to make antiserums (along with who to save - hotness is a factor). And dealing with massive severe climate change.

Look to movies like Mad Max, Army of Darkness, 12 Monkeys, Planet of the Apes, Terminator, Back to the Future, 28 Days Later.

3. Advanced Technological Dystopia where computers and robots infest our world. What to do to become the heroic detective and how to talk in 'cityspeak'. Being the Hacker and how to dress for it. How to tell if someone is a replicant and clone (and using it to your advantage). Dealing with extra-terrestrials and robot uprisings.

Movies: Terminator, A.I., Blade Runner, Fifth Element, Mars Attacks, They Live, and Alien.

4. Lastly, Tips for saving the world such as how to stop the alien invasion, assembling the proper ecclectic group of people to save the world, beating the massive co-ordinated animal uprising, and dealing with giant insects and other mutants of radiation.

Meghann gives us a great book to show how we can outwit and survive those less knowledgeable people that live down the street. Big influences on Mad Max movies, Matrix, & Blade Runner. Also, Meghann wants to make sure that anyone should be saving Jude Law for her (or George Clooney as a back up). She appreciates the undefined wisdom of Biff Tannen and most importantly... do whatever you need to to get a 1974 Ford Falcon 'V8 Interceptor' and you will be sure to survive.

If, by some chance, I should ever survive an apocalypse, I definately want this book on hand. It is useful, insightful, and, oh yeah, hilarious. Having seen the movies she references makes it all the more fun. Read it for yourself, and pass it on to friends. You'll be quoting from it in no time.

Freaking awesome book. Just finished reading it, and there's alot of good stuff in there. Good overeveiw on pretty any bad end of the world scenerio. Exept global warming, but lets worry about that later. Lots of movie referances (face it, that's where we really learn stuff) and great mood. There's even a section in there about how to jerrymander your car to be baddass. I found the "Neo Medival " section to be most useful, and could apply to a wide range of very possible disasters, from that terrible movie "Waterworld" to the desert wasteland that always comes with the end of a nuclear war.

Also, the cover is bumpy wherever there are bulletholes. Feel the bumps, buy the book!

I just finished reading "Field Guide to the Apocalypse" and it was as enjoyable a read as I have had in a while. Meghann has a wit and wisdom that exceeds what most people seem to have in their tiny little brains...plus she is cute as HELL! I had the pleasure of meeting her at a little get together at the Brooklyn Brewery on Sat. Aug. 27 and hearing her read from the book. It presents both fact and fiction, and Meghann's sense of humor makes the read that much more enjoyable. Some of the information within really made me think about how we've F@#$%! UP this world of ours. My favorite chapter dealt with "those damn dirty apes" from that planet visited by Charleton Heston. Although the author does an excellent job with the jocularity, some factoids made me a little nervous, but a little more aware of what we can do to save this little rock we call earth. Nice job Meghann. I can't wait for your next tome.

This may have been the funniest book I ever have read. It was informative, humorous, and entertaining. I think any fan of scifi movies would love this; there were so many hidden pop culture references throughout, it was almost like a game trying to figure out what each movie reference was while rereading it (and you'll definitely want to reread it).
On top of which, she mentioned Blade Runner, my favorite movie :) .

Ms. Marco's book isn't merely a helpful handbook for post-apocalyptic perserverence. It's also a cutting, incisive and severely witty piss-take on everything from science fiction cinema to modern politics. And while movie buffs are obviously going to get the most hahaha for their buck, but anyone who doesn't have to stop at least five times to put the book down because they're busting a gut from laughing should check their meds. Buy this book....NOW!